I thought it would be interesting to explore why some children's picture books resonate with adults. I would also love to hear what books you still love. My absolute favorite is Eloise by Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight.

Children's-book writer learned a lot from author and artist Tomi Ungerer. In Far Out Isn't Far Enough, a new documentary about Ungerer, Sendak says, "I learned to be braver than I was. I think that's why Where the Wild Things Are was partly Tomi — his energy, his spirit. I'm proud of the fact that we helped change the scene in America so that children were dealt with like the intelligent little animals we know they are."

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

There are so many that I still love! Lyle Lyle Crocodile, Phoebe's Revolt, Frog and Toad, Timothy Goes to School. I'm not sure why though. I guess just the cleverness/simplicity of the stories plus nostalgia. I loved being read to.

_________________I am not a troll. I am TELLING YOU THE ******GOD'S TRUTH****** AND YOU JUST DON'T WANT THE HEAR IT DO YOU?

What a wonderful idea for a thread, Vantine - and particularly resonant as we approach the start of a new school year! There are so many books to list that I don't know where to begin. One of the many things I've had a chance to examine while raising three kids is the atavistic attachment we have to some of the books we remember from childhood, whether or not we consider them "good" as adults. While my list of favorite children's books would include many critically acclaimed titles like Where the Wild Things Are, Good Night Moon, The Velveteen Rabbit, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, The Cat in the Hat, Charlotte's Web, The Secret Garden, James and the Giant Peach, and the Little Bear books, some of my warmest and fuzziest feelings have come from reading the books that I got through a Parents' Magazine Press book club membership (a gift from my favorite uncle when I was about 4) to my own children. In this way, "non-canonical" books with titles like Old Black Witch, Miss Suzy, Attic of the Wind, Scuttle the Stowaway Mouse, Why the Sun Was Late, Never Tease a Weasel, and Boy, Was I Mad (illustrations by Maurice Sendak) became touchstones for my own kids as well, and helped form a particular sort of connective tissue between our respective childhoods.

You can see many of them here. (Fortunately my mom passed them on to me when my boys came along, or I'd be tearing it up on eBay!)

I really loved Beatrix Potter! I think Mrs Tiggy Winkle, The Roly-Poly Pudding and The Tale of Two Bad Mice were particular faves.

I also really loved Robert Munsch's books. While it wasn't a favourite at the time, Love You Forever was probably his best and I tear up thinking about it. I'm thinking about getting the song tattooed (the version the son sings to his mother) for my mom, it was her favourite book to read to me. I also had an audio tape of Munsch reading some of his stories that got played A LOT during car rides.

I'd love to find a copy of What's Under My Bed? by James Stevenson. I remember some of the illustrations scared me but I still loved it, but all I really remember was that when grandpa was remembering his own childhood, in the flashback he still had a mustache.

_________________I was really surprised the first time I saw a penis. After those banana tutorials, I was expecting something so different. -Tofulish

i still love all of the books i loved as a kid, but i don't think i could explain why. i suppose part of it is that i'm still that girl in a lot of ways. i wanted my humor to be weird and off, and i didn't want any sugarcoating when it was time to learn something about life and injustice and everything terrible, and that's still how it is. i've kept everything by mercer mayer and beatrix potter, and my set of serendipity books by stephen cosgrove and robin james (i still think of trafalgar true and his sunstone every time i eat an orange). i have my original copy of charlotte's web and all of my dr. seuss books. my absolute favorites for bedtime were super what-a-mess and a book called the great escape about a bunch of baby alligators who were flushed down toilets in new york city and came up with a plan to fly to the everglades. in terms of picture books, i loved really busy, detailed, odd illustrations with surprise asides (mercer mayer was great for that; look at how the trollusk got his hat or search for the zipperump-a-zoo -- eat at joe's!), and i still love that in tv shows and movies. this list is making me realize that i was always rooting for animals, especially mistreated/neglected ones, which makes sense. maybe those themes are just common in children's stories; i can't remember really caring about a human protagonist until i was about nine.

_________________"rise from the ashes of douchebaggery like a fancy vegan phoenix" - amandabear"I'm pretty sure the moral of this story is: fork pants." - cq

Man, so many of these books are so good. Years ago, when she was still living, my grandmother bought me an annotated Charlotte's Web. It had been a favorite of ours to read together. The annotated version had a lot of info about EB White's writing process,which was thoughtful and meticulous. It's the type of process I aspire to (and sometimes achieve, sorta).

Yup, The Velveteen Rabbit I love enough to have him tattooed on half of my left arm.

I am obsessed with children's books. Vancouver has this AMAZING store called kidsbooks that is huge and beautiful and I could spend hours there. The staff are all incredibly passionate about kid/YA books and I spent half an hour just yesterday getting recommendations.

The Secret Garden touched me too, as did The Witches, Matilda, everything by Kit Pearson, The Giving Tree, the Old Bear series (those images!), and this book called Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks which is totally not a kid's book but I read it when I was twelve and I was obsessed.

I loved Jack Prelutsky too, which is probably the only real poetry phase I went through in my life in case you count my Emily Dickinson awakening in grade eight.

Not strictly speaking a book, but I got Cricket Magazine for years and years (Children's literature! Poetry! Beautiful illustrations! No advertising!) and get super super nostalgic about that.

I received Cricket for about 15 years. Lloyd Alexander! Trina Schart Hyman!

_________________A whole lot of access and privilege goes into being sanctimonious pricks J-DubDessert is currently a big bowl of sanctimonious, passive aggressive vegan enduced boak. FezzaYou people are way less funny than Pandacookie. Sucks to be you.-interrobang?!

Ferdinand! Still makes me cry. Millions of Cats and Nothing at All by Wanda Gag. I was obsessed with Astrid Lindgren -- all the Pippi Longstocking books, The Children of Noisy Village, Ronia the Robber's Daughter, and The Brothers Lionheart. The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlof. The Phantom Tollbooth. I also loved Roald Dahl and Brian Jacques. My all-time favorite book from childhood is Watership Down. I still have my super-worn-out original copy and love it so much.

Petite Prince is one of my all time favorite books and I read it at least once a year.

I really like all the Roald Dahl books as well especially the "Boy who Talked with Animals" and "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar". Lots of great adult themes camouflaged as entertaining kids stories.

"The Secret World of Og" by Pierre Burton and "Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang" by Mordecai Richler are both proudly displayed on my bookshelf.

oh, winnie-the-pooh! i love those stories so much! when i finished the house at pooh corner, i had a very serious talk with my bear about how i would never leave him, because that just wasn't even right. and he's in my bed right now, so take that, christopher robin, you ungrateful turncoat. some of us are good friends, and some of us are not.

_________________"rise from the ashes of douchebaggery like a fancy vegan phoenix" - amandabear"I'm pretty sure the moral of this story is: fork pants." - cq

So many of my favorites in this post: Frog and Toad, Where the Wild Things Are, Charlotte’s Web, The Secret Garden, Little Bear, Madeline, Matilda, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter, The Little Prince, Winnie the Pooh! And I must read Crictor.

I’m actually afraid to post here because I could just ramble on and on and on about children’s literature. I have to use my Websites to fully express my love for stories and words (though I mostly get by with pictures of book covers in the English-language one since my English is so clumsy).

In preschool years, my favorites were Barbapapa, Babar, Adelaide, Corbelle and Corbillo, The Little House, Curious George, the Monster series (illustrated by Quentin Blake), Arnold Lobel’s books, Lillian Hoban’s, and Richard Scarry’s. Also Voyage au pays des arbres, for which there is no English translation, I think (though its author won the Nobel prize). And fairy tales, from all over the world. All these books made me dream and dream and dream. They filled my life with wonderment and tenderness. They made the world look like all play and fun with magic just around the corner. And I am still amazed at the quality of their drawings and storylines. If I’d had access to them at the time, I’d also have been impressed with Shi-Shi-Etko, Roxaboxen and Today, Maybe.

In elementary school, I fed on some novels I can still read with delight: The Little Princess, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Little Women, Little House in the Prairie, Heidi, Nobody’s Boy, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Noddy, Homecoming and its sequels, The Story of Helen Keller, Cheaper by the Dozen, Hugh Pine, The Prince and the Pauper, The Chronicles of Narnia (only two volumes of which were translated to French at the time - I was so happy when I discovered, years later, that there existed five more). I liked novels by the Comtesse de Ségur, too. In the untranslated category, there were L’Extraordinaire Ambassade de Messire Renart and Les Aventures de Victor Piquelune. All these novels not only brought me the wonder I couldn’t do without, they also made me discover other cultures, other times, other ways of thinking. Reading was a broadening experience, like I could live many lives in one, explore a little bit of everything without anyone getting hurt in the process.

Franco-belgian comics were full of fun too, and made with talent: Yoko Tsuno, Tintin, the Smurfs, Johan and Peewit, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Papyrus, Spirou & Fantasio, The Bluecoats, Chlorophylle. I used to regularly come back from the public library with a heavy bag full of them.

And then, growing up, I never stopped loving novels for children and teens and never cared for a great number of adult novels, so I went on to discover tons of gems. I really mustn’t start on them now since this post is already too long and it isn't the topic anyway ^^’ But one thing I only started loving as an adult was poems, and that was when I read The Golden Treasury of Poetry. I wonder whether it might not be my bring-to-a-deserted-island book.